It is a screen shot from BBC Breakfast featuring new host Dan Walker with veteran television presenter Louise Minchin.

Dan, 38, is a former sport presenter with relatively little broadcasting experience compared to 47-year-old Louise, who has served on the show for the last decade. She has also presented The One Show, The Today Programme on BBC Radio 4, BBC News, Missing Live and Real Rescues.

To explain the complaint with this photo we need to rewind to when Louise was co-hosting with long-serving anchor Bill Turnbull, who retired earlier this year after 15 years.

Here they are together

(Picture: BBC)

In broadcasting circles, the senior host usually occupies the left hand side of the screen known as ‘camera left’.

When Bill and Louise were presenting BBC Breakfast together, Bill always took the prized left slot while Louise sat to the right of the famous red sofa.

This always seemed fair enough as Bill was the one with more experience.

As does Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain to senior journalist Piers Morgan

Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid (Picture: ITV)

Natasha Kaplinsky on BBC Breakfast with Dermot Murnaghan

And Julie Etchingham sat on the right with Mark Austin on BBC News at Ten

Not to forget senior Matt Baker sitting ‘camera left’ on The One Show with Alex Jones

So when Dan joined the show, Louise naturally assumed she would get the left hand position on the screen as the more senior presenter.

Spoiler warning: she didn’t

BBC producers did a few test recordings with Louise on the left, but decided the format ‘didn’t work’ and have insisted that she remain on the right hand side of the screen in the number two slot.

Louise is understood to have complained about the decision, reopening a long-running misogyny row over older female presenters.

Viewers too were disappointed to see Dan stuck on the left. Adele Clarke, from Cheshire, told Radio Times:

I was annoyed to see “new boy” Dan Walker seated on the left, in Bill Turnbull’s own place, before far more experienced news presenter Louise Minchin remained int he ‘number two’ position on the right.

How long will it take the BBC (and most other news stations) to catch up with the rest of us in the 21st century? Be brave – try seating a woman on the left and see how the world will keep turning.

Miriam O’Reilly, the former Countryfile presenter who won an ageism case against the BBC, said there was ‘deep-rooted misogyny in newsrooms’ still and male presenters sitting to the left of female presenters was evidence of this.

‘It’s just deep-rooted misogyny in newsrooms where editors think a man somehow has more authority… And of course the people who make these decisions tend to be men themselves.’

A BBC spokesman said: ‘There is no seniority in terms of who sits where on the BBC Breakfast sofa. It’s all about judging which is the best camera angle for the presenters.’

It’s not all bad news though…

Here’s Judy Finnigan sitting ‘camera left’ of husband Richard Madeley

And Isabel Webster sitting left of Eamonn Holmes on Sky News’ Sunrise

But wait…. what about Ant and Dec?!

Anthony McPartlin is always to the left of Declan Donnelly (Picture: ITV)